Lost Hope
by Bird02
Summary: Because there's just not enough Morris represented here... A oneshot taking place after 14.08 Coming Home, including some spoilers. Morris reflects on the changes and recent losses in his life.


_A/N: This is a one-shot that came to mind after seeing Morris and Pratt's interactions about the Boards. When thinking about the people on ER who've gone through rough times, Morris is probably the last person on most people's minds. Lately, though, his character has really been through a lot, and there are glimpses (in the stairwell with Abby, for example) of his being a much different person than most of the staff sees him. I like that the writers have finally made him a multi-dimensional character, and this is sort of the summation of that. Anyway, here's the thoughts of Archie Morris post 14.08-"Coming Home."_

Most people think I'm about as deep as a cereal bowl. I haven't done much to make them think otherwise, either. I actually liked it that way for a while. It was kind of fun to be the court jester of Count General- lots of partying and schmoozing with a lot less responsibility. It was pretty convenient, too. All the perks of being a doctor without much of the hassle. After all, it's hard to disappoint people when they don't expect much in the first place. Lately I've come to realize that living in the moment isn't all that great when the moment you're living in starts to really suck…

It's an odd feeling to prove your inner voices right, even when you've done everything in your power to silence them. Somewhere inside of me, there was always this nagging feeling that I would never actually be the guy who I wanted so badly to be- namely, a guy who was capable of things his old man never could have imagined. When that feeling spoke to me, invading my thoughts with the most destructive of motives, it spoke in the same unmistakable voice, as though he was right over my shoulder. My dad follows me everywhere, and just as it was when I was a kid, he's impossible to outrun or ignore. He used to creep into my head at peewee hockey practice, offering words of discouragement when I needed them least. He would interrupt my train of thought during tests, letting me know just how inconceivable it would be for me to pass. Sometimes, his laughter would keep me awake at night, a grating, horrible reverberation in my ears. He was always laughing at me; I know he still is.

For how much I've always hated him, I wanted to be there. Well, that's not true. I wanted him to want me to be there. I wanted him to put his faith in me. I wanted to know that this was all just some sick form of tough love and after all this stuff he said and did, the old bastard really did have a place for me. I wanted the satisfaction of knowing that he'd asked for me when he was weak and fragile. I wanted him to be proud of me. Maybe he would have been sorry for how we fell apart. I see it day in and day out, that intimate moment that parents and children share on a deathbed. It's like life's passing of the torch. There's a magic glue quality to it, the way it can so quickly mend the damage that's come over lifetime. I wish that I could have had one last moment to overshadow all the bad. It might have made the taste in my mouth less bitter. Somehow, I feel guilty for hating my dad. I guess I'll never know if he ever felt guilty for hating his son.

More than anything, I wanted so much to make good on a promise I made myself when I saved Jerry. That day last year had given me a way to quiet his laughter for once, and the result was so amazing that I gave up all that money and glamour and potential for hookups at the pharmaceutical gig. Believe me, the idea of groveling for my job almost made me walk- humble pie being the driest, most bitter thing I've tasted, and by far the hardest to swallow. But when you realize just how hungry you are for substance in your life, you'll do just about anything to get it, I guess. I promised myself that I would really see this whole thing through now, only it would be on my terms. And maybe, _maybe_, I'd finally feel like I belonged. I guess you could say County is just one more addiction for me, but deep down inside, I want this place to need me the way that I need it.

Ironically, losing Hope has reduced me to a point that the only comfort I want is for her to hold me and make it all go away. Life is cruel that way, taking things from you that you need. It makes me wonder about life's bitter chain of cause and effect. Did my dad's effect on me make me the person I am, the man unable to look beyond himself to fulfill the needs of the woman he loves? Did he kick off because his whole life's mission of making me miserable had been fulfilled? Or did she leave because she could sense the hopelessness of it all? And did I fail the Boards because I had no reason of pride to pass them, or did I fail because my grief prevented my focus? She had an amazing warmth. I miss her.

Oh God, and when she came here this year… okay, so at first, Hope was like any other girl. Well, not _just _like any other girl. It's like they say, gentlemen prefer blondes. She could stop traffic. At first, that whole Bible study thing threw me; I didn't think she was serious about that stuff. By the time I realized that she was, it was too late. There was just something about her… and you know what? I actually felt better. I found myself doing nice things, even when she wasn't around! Love does that to you. It's a drug, and it can make you do unbelievable things. I've been around plenty of users and seen lots of idiotic things. Hell, I've _done _a lot of idiotic things. But they don't compare to the fools we make of ourselves under the influence of love.

But the worst part about love's incredible intoxication is the addiction it creates. You find yourself craving it in the most primal way. And the symptoms of its withdrawl are nothing short of shattering. Love reduces you to your purest form, stripping away your ego and all the walls you've built. It blinds you to everything, and when it's ripped from you, you start to see things, feel things, that you hoped you never would. You begin to feel how small you are, how insignificant. You feel a pain that you forgot existed and experience how dismal things are in reality. The weight of it all presses down and deflates you until you can hardly breathe, until your body feels every bit as tired and old as the calendar says it should. Loss of love is like the hangover no amount of aspirin or sleep will cure.

There are times when I think that I'm glad she's gone. I feel better when I think of her stuck in middle of nowhere regretting her decision. I tell myself that I am a career bachelor, and it's better this way, but I've never been a great liar… not even to myself. I can read right through my attempts at reassurance, dissect the taught, confident smile I see in the mirror. I wonder if anyone else could do it this easily? I wonder if John Carter knew that I had no idea what I was doing in the ER? I wonder if that poor bastard Robert Romano knew what a phony I was before he found me in the ambulance bay? Could the patients tell when I was sugar-coating their prognoses so that another doc or a nurse would get stuck bearing the bad news? Could women tell what I really wanted with them? Does everyone already know what this envelope holds and says about my Boards? Did my dad know how afraid of him that I was? Or was I afraid of him because I was scared that he was right about me? At the worst times, I think I'm glad he's dead; at the best, I think I'm mad I could never make things right between us.

Sometimes, I think about Willis and Clyde and Andre. Three people in pain, trapped in a place where life is spinning beyond their controls. They're afraid- all of them. The fear just manifests in different ways. Maybe it's why I stayed to talk about Hot Wheels with a guy I could have been sitting next to in a bar. It wasn't that I wanted to enjoy being right about his DID. Really, I'm just as afraid of what's waiting in the dark. For Andre, the hospital was a big, scary place. For me, where I am in my life is a big, scary place. What's been happening just further proves that you can never be too sure what's lurking just beyond your field of vision, creeping up and waiting to overtake you.

I need to read this paper again in my hands to be sure that it really says what it does. I need to be sure this isn't some hallucination or nightmare. I always knew Pratt would pass; he's a great doctor. I've learned a lot about medicine from him. And I'm proud to call him my friend. He's taught me a lot outside of medical arenas. I know he'll keep my secret. I want to be happy for him… but it's really hard to feel anything right now.

I've managed to drive back to my apartment, and I don't even know how I got here. Oh, I've had my share of those nights before, but usually, the circumstances were much different. Some people seem like they can survive on autopilot. Their lives are predictable and average and without incident. I never said that I wanted that kind of life, but at times like these, it doesn't seem so bad. I wonder how they got lucky enough to be average.

Then there are people like Ray… or how I _used_ to think it was for Ray. He used to glide over anything and nothing ever touched him, never even got close enough that he could feel the heat. He was one of those smooth guys who could just make things work. Today, Ray and I are not so different. He wears his scars from the agony of love on the outside, while mine are below the skin, still burning me from the inside out. We pull ourselves together. We keep breathing. We tell ourselves this is moving on.

The truth is that for all the times I've told myself that I'm Mr. Rubber (not _that _Mr. Rubber), I'm really Mr. Glue. I think I've deflected a lot of the negative things that people have said. I think I've been able to shrug off the bad days, but every so often, I realize just how heavy I feel. Then I know that at least a part of it all has stuck to me. It's times like these that I wish there was someone else to take a little of it off of me, but the sum of it all made me who I am, for better or for worse.

Looking around, I'm reminded how cold my apartment is. I don't have many pictures- not of people, anyways. I have lots of pictures of landmarks and of abstract things. Photographs are for people with families; those kids that looked me up from the sperm bank are the closest I come to that. Sure, I have their photos around here somewhere, phantoms of the life to which someone of my age should aspire. I'm sure their respective mothers all pictured someone like Coop when they accepted me for their children, a vision of a medical student who was smart and charismatic and strapping, at least someone who wasn't selling his genetic makeup for a bag of weed. I know they won't ever think of me as their dad, and they shouldn't. I could have easily been just a stranger in their worlds. In the end, I'm just a variable, a label on a vial. I'm strands of DNA. I'm a system of dominant and recessive traits, twenty-three donated chromosomes. I was an X for the girls, a Y for the boys. It's better that they don't really know me. For as excited as I am to have them in my life, I'm also constantly afraid that they'll find out all the things about me that I'm not so proud of… and God, there is a lot. I couldn't stand for them to be ashamed of me like I was ashamed of him. For now, it's enough to be the guy who they run to when they're mad at the people who've raised them or want an extra seat filler at a soccer game or jump rope tournament.

I keep thinking about my shift today and this one patient in particular. It was pretty normal, actually, but I remember one patient. I couldn't save a guy in cardiac arrest today. We tried everything. When I applied the paddles and watched him jump on the table, I couldn't help but think of myself. I feel so far gone sometimes that no amount of force can bring me back to a normal rhythm, the way it should be. No breath is enough to breathe life back into me. I'm not sure what it would take to open my eyes again.

Wow, by now, you probably think I'm about one Cubs loss away from throwing myself in front of a train or loading up on pills, but don't worry about me. Believe me, no one else does. I'll get over it. I know this is only temporary. I've come on my rough patches in the road before. Granted, I've never been dumped, lost my dad, and failed at the one thing that I've been aiming for all at the same time…

I'll admit, it was pretty embarrassing to cry in the stairwell. I had tried to get away from everyone and be alone, but I intentionally didn't get too far away. I think maybe in a way I wanted someone to find me. It had to be someone who cared enough to look instead of being unfortunate enough to stumble upon me. I just wanted someone to know that I _am _a human being, in spite of everything I've done to contradict that. There are times when my next conquest is not the center of my thoughts. There are times when I'm not smiling, when I'm not laughing, when I'm not wearing my false facade. Times like right now. Times when a new car or a hot suit can't fill the hollows from all that's missing in your life. Everything feels like cold water on a cavity, piercing pain. It's really not all bad, though. The pain is how you know you're still alive. It's your brain telling you that you need a little something extra, an internal nudge to ask for help. Sometimes, it's even welcome when you've been numb for a while.

I think of how we all pulled together for Lockheart and Joe. Would they do that for me? I know they all saw me that day he died. I mean _really _saw. Sometimes, I think that my whole world is one strong gust away from caving in on me and burying me alive. I don't think anyone would notice. What's worse is that I don't thing anyone would care. The fact is that I really don't want their sympathy, but I would really like their concern.

Tomorrow will be better. It's what I always tell myself when things don't go right. If I strike out with a hottie or make a mistake with a patient, I console myself with the idea that tomorrow is a clean slate. But what is it really? Just a continuation of today with a different name. It's appropriate, I guess. I've always been a procrastinator. I'll wait for tomorrow for things to shape up, but for the rest of today, I'd just settle for some quiet and lament lost Hope.


End file.
